


darling, dearest, dead

by madiigriffins



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy smashing things, Bellarke but it's not the only focus, Canon Compliant, F/M, Heavy Angst, Josephine Lightbourne Possessing Clarke Griffin, Minor Bellamy Blake/Echo, Minor Memori, S6 speculation, mostly? i don't think they'll go this way at all, post 6x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-05-13 19:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19257985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madiigriffins/pseuds/madiigriffins
Summary: “Clarke is dead. I can’t bring her back. I’m sorry.”or, after trying everything to bring her back, clarke's gone for good and it breaks them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :)
> 
> I've head this idea floating around in my head since 6x04, but I finally started fleshing it out a few days ago. There's nothing better to do on a rainy Saturday than write, right?
> 
> It's canon through 6x06 and purely speculation after that, plus we're all pretty much convinced that Clarke won't *actually* stay dead, especially after the 6x07 preview. 
> 
> I've played around with writing in the past, but this is my first time actually publishing something (or, hell, even committing to finishing something.) Please tell me if you like it and want more, or even if you hate it! Constructive criticism is always appreciated. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Title credits to ASOUE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is more of an intro, and most of the angst doesn't start until Chapter 2, which is a much longer chapter that is almost finished and should be up tomorrow or Wednesday. Hopefully.

“There’s nothing else we can do." 

Murphy and Emori glance at each other, panic in their eyes. Raven squints harder at the notes laid out on the desk she’s sitting at. Echo continues pacing around the room. Abby starts furiously shaking her head. 

Bellamy tries to block the words out. He’s standing over the table that Clarke’s body is laid out on, holding Madi’s hand. 

Thanks to Octavia and Diyoza, they had managed to contact the Old Man, who turned out to be none other than the Gabriel they had seen turn a young woman into a reincarnation of Josephine. He gave them more information about the mind drives and the serum, offered to take them to his lab, and revealed that Clarke wasn’t completely lost yet, just dormant, waking whenever Josephine fell asleep.

They just had to act fast before Josephine completely overpowered what was left of her. 

They had been in there for hours, using their combined knowledge and trying _everything_ that could possibly work. 

It wasn’t enough, though.

They were _so sure_ that something would work and trigger Clarke to come back to them, but her mind was wiped. A blank slate with a deteriorating brain.

“You’re positive?” Echo asks, breaking the silence. She stops pacing and stares at Clarke’s still body.

“She’s lost. She’s just a body without a mind,” says Gabriel, rubbing his eyes. 

Bellamy lets out a strangled laugh. Madi holds his hand so hard that he thinks his fingers will break.

Murphy glares in Gabriel’s direction. “You said we could get her back. We went through all this trouble to get her to you and now you’re going to leave her like this?” 

“John,” Emori whispers, trying to calm him down. It’s no use. 

“You fucking _promised_.” His words are dripping with venom. 

Gabriel slowly stands and walks to face Murphy, annoyingly calm even as multiple people's worlds are falling apart around him. “I never promised anything, I said it _could_ work. Removing the consciousness from the Host’s body and bringing the original mind back - it’s never been done before. There was always the risk that something could go wrong, and it did.”

“So we just give up?” Bellamy lets go of Madi’s hand and walks over to stand next to Murphy. His heart is pounding in his chest. “We’re not losing Clarke. That’s not an option.”

“I told you, there’s nothing else we can do!” Gabriel snaps, obviously irritated. His head drops as takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down, and when he meets Bellamy’s eyes again, he looks exhausted. “Look,” he says, looking around the room, “I told you there was a chance that this would fail. I was confident it wouldn’t, but it did. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I do know it’s a lost cause. You’re going to have to face the truth.”

“No…” Abby whispers. She’s shaking.

Gabriel looks around the room again, his gaze filled with pity. “Clarke is dead. I can’t bring her back. I’m sorry.”

Raven pales and her eyes fill with tears. She had remained stoic the whole time, but now she slumps down in her chair, squeezing her eyes shut. Everyone else is frozen in place, not wanting to believe the words coming out of Gabriel’s mouth.

Bellamy wants to scream. He wants to weep. The humming and beeping of the machinery sounds distorted in his head as the truth starts to sink in.

_Clarke’s dead. She’s not coming back. Ever._

_I’ve lost her for good._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for who left kudos, bookmarked, and commented! Your feedback is so encouraging and makes me more motivated to explore the ideas in my head and write more :) Furthermore, thanks to everyone who took the time out of their day to read Chapter 1! I appreciate you all so much <3
> 
> This chapter focuses on the initial reactions everyone has when they find out that Clarke is gone for good. Some people's parts were very easy to write, and others took a lot more time for me to figure out where I wanted to go with them. I really, really tried to get everyone's characterization down and make the relationships as realistic as possible and I hope they don't sound super OOC or anything like that. Raven in particular - I think she'll forgive Clarke and mend things with her, but I don't see her being the kind of person who will just let everything go the moment they find out the other person is dead, you know what I mean? 
> 
> I have an idea of what I want to do with the final chapter, but I haven't started writing everything out yet. That being said, I have the whole weekend to write so it should be up by Monday or Tuesday at latest.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> Sidenote: 6x07 was SO. GOOD. I'm thoroughly enjoying this season and can't wait to see how everything is going to continue playing out. So much can happen in the next 6 episodes and I'm ready for whatever they throw at us!

Clarke was never one of Echo’s favorite people.

It’s no secret. Clarke knows it, Bellamy knows it, everyone else in the room knows it.

She can’t help but defend her whenever her friends attack her, though. People who Echo once considered enemies became family over the six years that she spent on the Ring. And even if all of them weren’t quite ready to forgive her yet, she knew they would come around eventually.

And she knows how much Bellamy loved Clarke.

She loves Bellamy and believes that he loves her back, but his love for Clarke has been undeniable.

She saw it on the Ring, caught him staring out the window for hours at a time, hoping, _praying_ that there was some way Clarke was still alive on the scorched planet beneath them. Every time they tried to make contact with the bunker, he would rehearse how he would tell Abby that her daughter was dead, which would always end with him in tears. When the one year anniversary of them going up to space came, he completely broke down and wouldn’t let anyone comfort him.

She saw the pain, the absolute _heartbreak_ in his eyes when he told her Clarke was dead a few days ago.

She saw the hope when Gabriel told them they could bring her back.

And now, as she looks at him, she sees how truly devastated he is. It’s worse than ever before.

She doesn’t know if she can comfort him, doesn’t think she can even try.

 

~~~

 

The moment Gabriel confirms what they were dreading - that Clarke is dead - Emori’s mind goes to a lab similar to the one they’re in now, a hundred years ago on another planet.

How Clarke injected herself with the nightblood, potentially sparing Emori from a painful death.

Sure, the nightblood ended up working, but none of them knew that at the moment. She remembers how terrified she was of going into the chamber and being tested, because _please, I don’t want to die, please, not like this_. 

Then, how Clarke had swapped hazmat suits with her, still not knowing if the nightblood would even protect her.

And finally, how Clarke had risked her life to ensure that Emori and her family could survive in space. 

Those first few nights in space, she couldn’t fall asleep. The whole situation she was in seemed so surreal - she couldn’t believe that the would have to live in the remains of a space station forso long, couldn’t believe that the Earth was on fire again.

One thought consistently stood out in her racing mind: _Clarke should be here._

That thought comes back to her now, light years away on a moon. _Clarke should be here. She didn’t deserve this._

She cries into John’s shoulder.

 

~~~

 

Murphy’s been to hell.

At least, he _thinks_ it was hell. It was fiery and terrible and he knows he never wants to go there again.

That’s why, when Josephine offered him a chance at immortality, he took it right away. He’d never have to worry about dying again, never have to worry about going back there.

He is a cockroach after all.

So is Clarke, though. And death finally got her. 

Yeah, he was tired of Clarke deciding who’s worthy of survival. He was sick of always giving her another chance. Their relationship was…complicated, to say the least.

That doesn’t mean that he didn’t care.

When Josephine straight up told him that her parents had killed Clarke, he was shocked. He and Clarke may not have been in the best place, but he didn’t want her to _die_. 

But he still wanted to escape death and live forever with Emori by his side.

At first it sounded perfect - he and the love of his life, infinite chances to do better, and not having to worry about ensuring his survival because if he physically died, he’d just get put into a new body. 

Now, as he holds Emori in his arms and stares at Clarke, listening to the sounds of her loved ones mourning her all because someone else who wanted to be immortal was put into her body, he’s not so sure.

 

~~~

 

“Be the good guys.”

Monty’s words have been echoing in Raven’s head for days, and she felt obligated to fulfill his last wish. Her people were going to answer for their sins and finally be the good guys, and she was going to make sure of it.

That’s why it’s been so difficult to forgive Clarke.

When Clarke killed Finn - her home, her _family-_ she was furious. But she quickly came to see that there was no good outcome, he would have died anyway, in an infinitely more painful way. She understood why Clarke did it, and as much as it hurt, she was thankful.

It was harder to understand why Clarke betrayed her and her friends. Yes, she knew that Clarke was protecting Madi, but in her mind, anyone who willingly turned their friends over to a bunch of murderous psychopaths isn’t a Good Guy.

So every time Clarke tried to apologize, Raven would strike her down. She couldn’t accept Clarke’s apologies right away - Clarke was going to have to work for it, show that she actually _wanted_ to do better.

Deep down, Raven knows that Clarke was good, mistakes and all. They’ve all done things they regret, Raven included. Even if it took years to forgive her, she knows that they would have been friends - no, family - again. 

They’d never get that chance now.

She still feels that she has every right to be angry with Clarke, but now that Clarke’s dead (she feels the tears threatening to spill over again), Raven regrets not even trying to take the olive branch that she was extending.

And maybe, in a fucked up world like this, there are no good guys.

 

~~~

 

Abby remembers when Clarke was placed in her arms, how she had instantly fallen in love with her perfect baby, with her big blue eyes and chubby cheeks and adorable laugh.

That perfect baby soon grew into a perfect child that wowed her with artistic talent and eagerly followed her around medical, and then into a teenager who was a natural leader and stronger than Abby could ever imagine, one that didn’t need her protection anymore, and finally into a beautiful young woman with a child of her own.

One who she loved so, so much through everything they had been through.

One who she realized wasn’t herself a little too late.

(The thoughts come creeping in, the thoughts that say _you’re a terrible mother, you should have realized right away, you don’t know your own daughter anymore…_ )

It’s no use to blame herself though, because those monsters stole her baby girl. 

Killed her baby girl.

She’s no stranger to pain. She felt it when Jake was floated, when she was drilled into in Mount Weather, all the times she almost lost Marcus…

None of that even comes close to this.

All she can do is scream.

 

~~~

 

Madi will never forget the day the radiation wiped out her village. The day she lost her parents, her friends, everyone she had ever known. She remembers screaming and crying for hours, wanting this to be a nightmare she’d soon wake up from. 

A six year old, all alone in a dead world.

Until she met Clarke.

Clarke, who taught her English while braiding her hair. Clarke, who would tell her stories about the people in the sky and under the ground as they cuddled under the stars. Clarke, who drew portraits of her loved ones while Madi watched, mesmerized by the way she remembered every single detail.

Madi has never called Clarke “Mom” to her face. At first she wasn’t even sure if Clarke thought of their relationship like that, and even when Clarke started referring to her as her child, she had the nagging thought in the back of her mind that she would somehow be replacing the mother that Praimfaya had taken from her. 

Now, she’s sure that Clarke is - _was_ \- her mom. But she’ll never get the chance to say it.

Sure, the people in the room with her will keep their promises to Clarke and take good care of her. She’s heard hundreds of stories about them and feels like she’s known them for years. But it’s not the same.

She feels alone again.

She’s sobbing and she wants her mom.

 

~~~

 

It had all seemed too good to be true. 

They had escaped their coffin in the sky, survived the Mountain Men and the death wave and everything in between, and now, Bellamy thought that maybe, just _maybe_ , they could have settled down. Repaired their relationships with each other. Been truly happy.

And then he lost her again.

When Clarke - no, Josephine, looked into his eyes and he realized what had happened to her, realized just how she had died, he wanted to burn this damn moon and everyone on it.

Then Gabriel told them that Clarke was still alive in her head, and he believed that everything would somehow be ok again.

He had to believe. That was the only way he wouldn’t completely fall apart.

Like how he is right now.

Bellamy Blake loves Clarke Griffin.

It’s different from the way he loved Gina, different from how he loves Echo.

They had been through so much together. They were best friends. Co-leaders. Something else too, something he couldn’t quite place. 

Thinking she was dead for six years had been torture. He had learned to go on, found strength in his family, but the pain never quite went away.

It won’t go away now either.

_(I shouldn’t have let her meet Russell alone. I shouldn’t have let her dance with that guy at the party. I shouldn’t have-)_

He feels weak and his head is spinning. He’s desperate to grab on to anything, anyone, but everyone else seems as lost as he is.

_“You are my family too. You’re too important to me.”_

_(You were my family too, Clarke.)_

His eyes find the table where her body is, and he’s overcome with nausea. He wants to call out to her, tell her everything that’s on his mind, but there’s no point, it’s too late, she won’t hear him. The only thing he can do is repeat those four words over and over and over again in his head.

_I love you, Clarke._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not getting this out earlier. Writers block, work, and everything in between kept me from writing, but I promised myself I'd finish this fic. Better late than never, I guess?
> 
> In all honesty, there's parts of this chapter that I love and also parts that I'm just... not completely sure about, but I hope you like it. It's drifted even more from canon (speaking of canon, I'm just gonna pretend that the Marcus Kane fiasco in 6x08 never happened). 
> 
> Once again, thanks to everyone who commented, bookmarked, dropped a kudos, or even just clicked on this fic! I had a lot of fun writing and publishing my first story, and your support has inspired me to think about writing even more in the future :')

It’s eerily silent.

Shortly after breaking the news, Gabriel had excused himself to let them grieve alone, clearly not wanting to get caught in the ugly whirlwind of emotions that shortly followed.

At first there was crying, a lot of it, from everyone in the room. Some of it was more subtle and quiet, and some of it was loud and devastating. 

Next, Bellamy had destroyed the machinery.

He took advantage of the situation in the room, when everyone else was caught up in their own grief, and had grabbed a chair, smashing it into the computer screen that showed a scan of Clarke’s brain.

“What the hell are you doing?!” He heard Murphy yell, and he felt Echo’s arms grab his waist in an attempt to hold him back, but nobody could stop him as he unleashed his rage. 

He only stopped when one of the chair’s legs snapped after a particularly hard hit to the desk.

Now, everyone is slumped against the walls of the damaged lab, the silence only broken by an occasional shaky breath or a sniffle.

They’ve been sitting there for hours that feel like days, and nobody wants to check the clock that’s hanging on the wall above the table where _she_ is.

Murphy finally breaks the silence.

“So… what do we do now?”

Nobody responds.

“I’m serious. They know we took Clarke and ran, and when they find us it’s not going to be pretty.”

Silence.

“I’m just saying, we better figure out wh—“

“Murphy,” says Raven, glaring at him. “Now’s not the time.”

“Except it is.”

More silence.

“Look, this sucks. I’m grieving her too. But we’ve been like this for hours and—”

“Murphy,” says Madi, and everyone looks up. She had been sitting silently, her head in her knees, ignoring any attempts made to comfort her the entire time. But now her voice sounds murderous. “ _Shut. Up._ ”

So he does.

~~~

Gabriel comes back about an hour later.

“I brought you some food, figured you might be hungry.” He says uncertainly. “And you’re free to spend the night at my camp.”

The group mutters their thanks.

“I also have Josephine’s mind drive.”

That grabs their attention.

“I know you want nothing to do with the Lightbournes, but I can guarantee that they’re looking for you with an army of guards right this second. If you give the drive back, they’ll be more likely to let you stay and build your own compound. If you destroy it, they _will_ kill you. All of you, plus every one of your people in Sanctum and on the ship.”

Gabriel holds the mind drive out, unsure about who to give it to. Bellamy hesitates, then takes it, ignoring the very powerful urge to destroy it.

“We’ll discuss it tonight.”

Gabriel nods, and turns to leave again. 

But Bellamy stops him, grabbing his arm. “Thanks for everything,” he says, and gives him the smallest of smiles, one that doesn’t reach his eyes.

~~~

They take the food to Gabriel’s tent, and try to figure out what to do.

“I’m thinking we should just turn ourselves in, give the drive back, promise not to attack, and live happily ever after,” Murphy starts.

“Even if we don’t destroy the drive, they’ll be mad that we messed with Josephine’s host. They don’t exactly have a bunch of nightbloods to choose from,” says Echo.

“They’ll be fine,” mutters Raven, “Because Abby already made them a fresh synthetic batch and taught them everything.”

“Then she can go up to space and make even more. Or give them control of the transport ship so they can go to space and make more whenever they want.” 

“I’m not helping them again,” Abby’s voice is free of any emotion, but her red and puffy eyes say otherwise. “Not after what they did.”

“You had no problem helping them when you were trying to save Kane, though,” Raven says, raising her eyebrow.

“I _know_ , Raven,” Abby snaps back at her. “Josephine manipulated me when I was at my lowest and—“

“And you didn’t even recognize that it wasn’t your daughter in there,” Madi says coldly.

“I—”

“What a great mother you are,” Madi continues. “And _you_ , Murphy. Feeding her information about us for your own selfish reasons.”

Murphy puts down his plate of food. “Ok, kid, first of all—”

Madi interrupts him too. “It’s fitting that everyone calls you a cockroach. Maybe we should start calling your girlfriend one too.”

She sets her sight on Raven.

“And what about you? She admired you, you know. And all you did was criticize her.”

“Madi,” Bellamy interjects, “That’s enough.”

The anger in Madi’s eyes is visible. She’s breathing hard as she glares at all of them.

“I’m just saying. She told me everything about all of you, made you sound like the world’s heroes. But in reality? You don’t even want to fight to get justice for her death! You all suck.”

Bellamy sighs and places his hands on her shoulders.

“Madi, trust me, I hate what happened. But I’m tired of fighting.”

He looks around the room at the exhausted group. 

“And something tells me the rest of you are too.”

Nobody tries to argue.

Clarke’s death _hurts_. But they came to Sanctum to start over, to do better. They don’t want another war, another hundred people dead, another reason for them to break even more.

(Clarke’s death already broke them enough.)

~~~

Russell and Simone are shocked when Bellamy shows up with the mind drive.

“We have your precious daughter, completely unharmed. Just let us build our own compound far away from here, give us the supplies we need, tell us how to survive the eclipse, and we’ll gladly never see you again.” 

Russell nods, then opens his mouth to speak. “I truly am sorry for what we did.”

“We don’t want to hear it.”

“But I need you to,” Russell draws in a deep breath, “I regret putting my daughter’s drive into Clarke’s body—”

“You mean killing her,” Murphy interrupts.

“—when she was unwilling.” Russel ignores him.

Raven rolls her eyes. “Yeah, you regret killing an innocent, unwilling girl instead of an innocent, brainwashed girl instead.”

Russell closes his eyes for a long moment.

“We had been waiting so long for Josephine to have a host, and when Rose died, we were desperate. We just wanted to have our baby girl back.”

“So you killed mine.”

Simone’s face softens as she addresses Abby. 

“I feel for you, I really do. But I can assure you that she felt no pain at all.”

Murphy laughs at that, and looks Simone dead in the eyes.

“Go float yourself.”

~~~

The first thing they do when they find the perfect place to settle - a beautiful valley, right next to a river and far enough away from Sanctum - is hold a funeral for Clarke.

She’s buried in the center of where their new village will be, on a slight slope overlooking the river.

It’s a small funeral, just the same group that went to the lab to try to save Clarke plus Octavia, Diyoza, Miller, Jackson, and Jordan. They’ll bring the rest of their people down to the moon once they start building.

They all give speeches, talking about how Clarke impacted their lives and what she meant to each of them.

There isn’t a dry eye in sight.

~~~

A week or so later, Echo and Bellamy end things.

(They both know it’s because of his feelings for Clarke, but none of them want to say it out loud.)

It’s on good terms and they promise to remain close friends, which they do. She later moves on with Jade, who desperately wanted out of Sanctum and who Echo (and soon after the others) learned to trust.

Bellamy thinks he might be able to love again. Maybe one day, but not anytime soon.

_Not the way he loved Clarke, though._

_~~~_

Emori announces that she’s pregnant two months after Clarke’s funeral.

Everyone celebrates the good news, and Murphy cries tears of joy. Raven gets it on video thanks to an old-fashioned camera they got from Sanctum.

Bellamy and Raven build a crib, and everyone pitches in to help sew baby clothes.

When Jackson confirms that they’re expecting a girl, the naming game begins.

“I don’t know, I still think Memori is a good name. Memori Murphy.”

“ _Jooooohn_ ,” whines Emori, laughing, “You know Jordan wasn’t being serious when he said that!”

They’ve been at the edge of the river for an hour now, weighing all the options but getting absolutely nowhere.

“Jordan has a good name,” Murphy throws a stone into the water, watching the ripples it makes.

“Maybe we should do something like that. We could name her after Harper.”

“Love it. What about a middle name? I know Grounders were never big on those but—”

Emori grabs his hand and squeezes.

“Clarke. Harper Clarke.”

“Harper Clarke,” Murphy repeats, then leans over to kiss his girlfriend’s cheek. 

 

~~~

Raven takes care of Clarke’s grave.

One of her favorite pastimes is biking to a meadow of wildflowers located a couple of miles outside of the village. She spends hours there, picking the most beautiful flowers she can find and bringing them back to scatter them around her friend’s grave.

It’s the least she can do, to show her love and appreciation for a person she lost too soon.

(About a year and one month after Clarke’s death, Raven takes a knife and carefully carves a message into the gravestone:

_I forgive you._

_-RR_

It isn’t forced - she took her time, and waited until she was completely ready to give Clarke her forgiveness. Her only regret is that Clarke isn’t there to hear the words come from her mouth.)

~~~

Madi can’t sleep.

It’s not the first time that this has happened - she hasn’t slept well since Bellamy first broke the news that Clarke was dead not even two weeks ago. 

This time, though, she decides that it’s pointless to lay awake in her bed trying and failing to relax, so she grabs some blankets and starts walking towards the river, hoping that the sound of the water will soothe her.

Clarke’s grave is right in the middle of the path to the river, and she stops when she realizes someone is sitting by it.

The person turns towards her, and she realizes that it’s Abby.

She gives her a small, sad smile, and Madi walks over to join her.

They sit in silence for a long moment, not knowing what to say. Sure, they get along just fine, but it’s been a little awkward between them since Madi’s harsh words at Gabriel’s camp.

Madi gets an idea.

“Can you tell me a story about her?”

Abby looks over at her, a little confused.

“She told me so many stories about everyone she knew, now I want to hear about her. I don’t know, tell me something from when she was a little kid. Or something dumb that she’d probably never tell me about.”

Abby smiles again, but this time it’s more genuine.

It becomes a nightly routine for the two of them. At first, it’s just Abby telling the stories, but Madi soon joins in, telling stories about her and Clarke in Eden. For weeks, it always ends with them crying, even if the story being told is a happy one, but the tears eventually turn into smiles and laughter.

(Months later, when their village has houses and story time takes place in Madi’s bedroom, Bellamy overhears them talking about him.

More specifically, how they both thought Clarke was madly in love with him.

His heart skips a beat when he hears Madi say, “They would have been the best parents together.”)

~~~

Bellamy reaches the top of a hill overlooking the village and sits down on a rock, powering on a small, handheld radio.

He takes a deep breath, looks up towards the sky, and starts to speak.

_“Clarke, it’s been a year since you died.”_

He blinks back a few tears.

_“I hope you’re up in heaven, with your dad, and Wells, and Lexa, and everyone else you loved and lost._

_Our compound is… it’s incredible, Clarke. We never bothered to come up with an official name for it, we just call it home. There’s always enough food and water, we’re safe, and peaceful, and happy.”_

And it’s true. As much as he misses her every single day, his friends and family are thriving and he’s overjoyed.

_“We brought the rest of the people from the mothership down, even the criminals. They’ve been behaving so far, don’t worry. Gabriel and his “Children” have joined us too, and they’ve shown us so much about how to build our new lives here._

_Murphy and Emori had a baby. She’s beautiful, she has the biggest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. And guess what? They named her Harper Clarke. Everyone loves her. Diyoza gave birth too, to baby Hope. We already know that she and Harper are going to be best friends._

_I hope you like the flowers Raven picks out for your grave. She misses you a lot. We all do.”_

He feels tears escape his eyes, and wipes them away.

_“I’ve started fixing things with my sister. We sat down and had a long talk about ourselves, the six years we were apart, and why we did the things we did. We’re not perfect yet but…. we’re getting there._

_Your mom is doing a lot better. She accepted that Kane couldn’t be saved, so she let him go peacefully. She was devastated, but she’s been clean - we’ve all made sure of it. Building our village and training doctors for the hospital kept her busy. The best thing, though, is that she and Madi bonded over their love for you._

_Speaking of Madi, Sanctum gave us some of their school materials so she could continue learning. We’ve been teaching her too - Raven teaches her physics and math, your mom and Jackson have biology, and much to everyone’s surprise, Diyoza is a fantastic English teacher. I’ve been teaching her - you guessed it - history._

_In return, she’s teaching us how to draw. You taught her well in Eden - her portraits of us are amazing. She gives us lessons every week._

_She misses her mom, but we’re all taking good care of her. She loves her big brother Jordan, all her aunts and uncles, her grandmother, and I- apparently she called me her dad a while ago.”_

Echo had tracked him down one day and excitedly told him that Madi had asked her where her dad was. When Echo was confused, Madi had clarified:

“Bellamy! He’s basically my dad.”

_“Echo and I broke up, by the way, almost a year ago. She’s still family, and she’s so happy and in love with her girlfriend._

_As for me? Well…”_

He takes a deep breath.

_“It’s bittersweet being here. On one hand, the people we love are finally at peace. We can live normal lives without having to worry that we’ll be killed at any given moment. But…_

_I loved you, Clarke. I was in love with you._

_I wish you were here to experience this happiness too. It’s what you and I had always been fighting for. We could be starting this new chapter of our lives side by side. Together._

He smiles to himself.

_“I think I’m gonna do this more often. Maybe not every day, because this hill is a pain to hike up. But every week for sure. I’ll keep you updated._

_No matter what happens, you’ll always be with me._

_I love you, Princess.”_


End file.
